Arizona and New Mexico

Mile 835

One day and we are already in Las Cruces, New Mexico! We are posting from a place called Milagro Coffee y Espresso just off the New Mexico State U campus. Here's how our first day went:

After picking up our friend Yvette, we hit the road at 6:45am and luckily didn't have to deal with any traffic getting out of Orange County. Yvette is joining us for our trip east just to go for the ride. Like our last trip, we wanted to try to get as far out as possible on the first day before we started doing too much sightseeing since we've seen everything around here.


We made it to the Arizona border (for some cheaper gas!) by 10:21am at mile 225. Sometimes Arizona can be confusing to drive into because you don't know what time it is. Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, so sometimes their time is different from California and sometimes it isn't. Always forget which time of the year it is, and which time it isn't. Hawaii and Arizona (with the exception of the lands of the Navajo Nation in the northeastern part of the state) are the only places in the nation that do not observe Daylight Savings Time. Rolled into Phoenix around lunchtime and visited the state capitol building. One of the least traditional looking ones we've seen. Actually, the original capitol building is a much more elegant structure, but it has been converted to a museum. So in keeping with accuracy, the building shown actually houses the Territorial and State Legislatures, as well as various executive offices. We were also able to go down to Chandler, just southeast of Phoenix to visit briefly with our friend Khanhie on her lunch hour. She moved out here from Orange County last year.

Got to Tucson a couple of hours later where we met our friend Kathy for coffee. Again, just another quick visit and we were on our way.


Just south of Tucson was the town of Tombstone where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral took place in 1881. This picture was taken on Allen Street. The much of the actual gunfight took place on the opposite side of the block on Fremont Street, but the signage was better on the Allen side. Plus, Allen Street is a better preserved (or restored) example of a rugged frontier town of the 1870-80s, and provides a better backdrop representing the Old West. Fremont Street is now also known as Highway 80 and is a paved throughway.

We made it to the New Mexico border by 8:45pm at mile 697 and stayed the night just outside of the town of Las Cruces.